Papa's Day Out Volume IV

Tuesday it is! And by Tuesday, I mean that I have someone watching the boy and I can go have adventures. Or work. Today was adventure day. I owed someone some money for a little something to be seen later. (Hint: it goes well with Volvo Blue) I trekked downtown to the Grand Bazaar to make my purchase complete and decided to do some exploring while out. My grand plan was to visit the cafe owned by the very nice Americans, drink some delicious drip coffee and have a delicious sandwich, then explore Topkapi Palace and finish up with an islak burger.

Well. Denizen Cafe, whether it still be owned by said Americans, was completely empty and devoid of food options at 11:45 a.m. The lunch crowd must be scant. I peeked inside and was told they were open and was offered an espresso drink. None of the regular staff were seen. It was disorienting and a little sad as I haven't been very good about stopping by when we're in the neighborhood.

So next stop Topkapi Palace. I had only been once before and cut my visit short due to a very active toddler. The gates were only half open and guarded by men with machine guns. In other words, Topkapi Palace is closed on Tuesdays. There was a sign stating as much. I then decided to take advantage of Gulhane Park. I found my way in and took a bench and tried to relax and noticed the place was full of parrots. Emirgan Park has several, but they were everywhere in Gulhane.

Spot the parrots. There are two.

The park was dark and quite littered. Not nearly as kept up as Emirgan. I was thinking there had to be more to it. So I wandered. And I found a çay bahçe! There is a lovely tea garden on the Bosphorus side of the park and it made up for all the weirdness of the rest of the park. It has an amazing view of almost everything. Tea is expensive at 8 TL for a pot, but it contains about 10 cups of tea so the deal isn't that bad considering. I could only consume about five cups before I started feeling like I was on drugs, so I paid up and wandered off again.

Turkish version of America's Cup. The far boat totally won this race.

My çay and I.

A pilot boat reclaiming a pilot from the large ship. All the ferries had to wait until this ship had passed. There was quite a backup. No one honked their horns though.

After the tea, I found an exit and walked back towards the Galata Bridge so I could ascend the hill for my burger. It is quite a walk, but I found some nice images.

An old commuter train.

Some creepy boxcars.

Three ferries all in a row.

A Celebrity Cruise ship coming in to dock.

The islak burger was amazing in its simplicity and price. I read about it here, but it was a different restaurant that I patronized. I went to one by Tunel and found them for 2.50 TL each. With an ayran, it came to 7 TL total. Not bad. I was famished too. I could've eaten more, but I think these were just so so. Maybe the Kizilkayalar burgers were the ones to have. I went away happy and stuffed. I just needed something to soak up all that caffeine!

The rest of the day was spent coming home, which is old hat and uneventful anymore. I took a seat outside and watched the ships roll by and wished my sore throat were gone so I could enjoy my view with a beer. Serefe!

This is Teno. 299 meters long on her way to Constanza, Romania. Sail on, Teno!

At home.

Absence and Presence

It's been a while since I've been here! There are numerous reasons for this.

1. I have started watching Breaking Bad. So while the boy sleeps, I sometimes try to catch up on my stories. I'm midway through season 4. I really like this program, but watching four seasons of a TV drama can suck up your limited productive time.

2. I have found myself way behind in posting so I end up not posting at all. I have a few drafts that I want to publish just so I can clear the plate, but they all happened so long ago that I forget a lot of the magic and end up skipping the finer details.

3. I write this for you, but more importantly for me. I enjoy writing of the "thereness" of here, but I've been here so long that there is actually here. Got it? When I first landed in this country it seemed like everything was different so I wanted to comment on that. I realize now that these differences will follow me to every new place I go. I continue to celebrate them. I think they are just piling up quite fast and also, that they become less different the longer I am here.

That said, I've been up to a lot and I've had a great time this summer. Let the reintroduction begin.

Papa's Day Out Pt. III

It was my day to go out and about and do something fun today. I didn't have anything in mind, plus it is now the HOT time of the year and after being outside for ten minutes in the morning, I was angry and had a headache, so I knew being outside would not do. Therefore, I did what any red-blooded American would do and went to the mall.

I packed up my european man bag (Moleskine, partially charged Kindle, Buddhism For Mothers, several pens), gassed up my Volvo station wagon and drove the one kilometer to our fancy pants mall. The Özel Güvenlik waved me right through. They saw me comin'. They didn't need to search my trunk. Privileged!

Caffe Nero was getting a little tiresome with their foamy lattes and cappucinos, so I opted for something more local and hit the Starby's or Starbucks as they call it here. Before sitting down with my drip coffee, black notebook and mopey face, I sauntered by the movie theater to check out their offerings. There were ten American movies all starring my least favorite actor, Explosions. There was the Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy thing. And some movie called Disconnect.

Let me tell you about going to the movies in Turkey! The movie theaters are nice! You buy your ticket at the mall level either from a kiosk or a live person. If you are like me and stutter your way through Turkish asking for your ticket, they will type YABANCI on it, which means "foreigner" and not like the "I Want to Know What Love Is" band. Why did she have to do that? It didn't matter because no one ever looked at my receipt.

Yabanci

After procuring your ticket, you descend into the recesses of the mall where it's all completely cool and quiet and very very clean. There are several areas in which to get your food, and several nice areas to sit and wonder if you should go see World War Z next week (starring...Explosions!). I ordered a kucuk menu which was a small popcorn and an orange drink. This is not important.

Outside of each theater is a barcode reader that will scan the barcode on your ticket. I don't know if this is important as I didn't see it until the film was over. You go to your assigned seat, which is kind of nice. This was also not important as nobody else came to join me in the theater. I sat with rapt attention through the twenty minutes of ads and finally a trailer for Rush, which gave me goosebumps and that I cannot wait to see.

Just as the movie was reaching it's apex in action and excitement, the lights came on. I forgot. They have intermissions at the movies. It actually worked out great since I could use the tuvalet, or toilet. The movie continued shortly after I found my seat and I was treated to some more fine Disconnect soundtrack. It is really great. I emerged back to the mall and felt disoriented so I did the most logical thing I can do when feeling disoriented and looked at some shoes. Nothing fancy. Just some Vans. They look a lot like the Target shoes I was wearing except I believe they will last longer. That did the trick. I was my old self again. The movie made me miss my boy, so I motored home and found him sleeping which allows me to type up this little tidbit for you lot. Enjoy!

Papa's Day Out 2

This being Wednesday, I had another well deserved day off. Really. I deserve a day off too.

At one point in my journeys, I had espied a children's playground and a large expanse of green fields right next to it on the Asian side of the city. I thought it would be a great spot to take all of the children from our playgroup and today had the opportunity to do a little recon. The weather was drizzly and cool, which beats hot and humid any day. I made my way down to the harbor and we (collective we, I was all by my lone) set off. I alighted at Anadolu Hisari, the older and Asian counterpart to the castle on the European side.

I was pleased to see that there is a real neighborhood of shops and restaurants there and not only houses, as I had three hours until the ferry picked me up for my ride back home. It is quite picturesque with the many older style houses and the ramparts of the castle looming high above. I liked it immediately. I decided to start walking and make my way back later since the main street was right by the ferry terminal.

I wandered down a few streets and found my way to Küçüksu Palace, which was...interesting. The building itself is quite nice, with severe ornamentation on every surface and obviously it has a lovely setting nestled against the Bosphorus. However, although it is a museum open to the public, it didn't seem all that ready for visitors. I approached it cautiously, wondering if it was in fact, open to the public. I saw several signs in Turkish and English pointing the way to the different parts of the grounds. I entered the gates and a small opening in the mirrored windows of the ubiquitous TSP or Turkish Security Pod (seriously, you see these EVERYWHERE) opened up so I could ask for a ticket. They do not take the MuzeKart there so I could not get in for free, but admission was only 5 TL (which, with the plummeting value of the Lira thanks to the Gezi Park protests, made it a little over $2.60) AND I received a free booklet on the place. In English!

I walked up to the building and politely wiped my feet and tried the door. Locked. The ticket merchant signalled for me to go around back and held up five fingers. Five minutes more? I suppose. I went around back and took a few photos and then tried the other door, as it looked more like a regular entrance. Locked. Now I saw the front door open and the man inside gestured for me to come back around to the front. I went in and he immediately said to me "Not tour guide!" That's okay, I have a booklet!

I didn't think a tour guide was really necessary anyway. It's a former palace, or pavillion, or whatever the translation of karsi is. There mainly just seemed to be a lot of rooms for sitting, each with a room full of completely sun-faded furniture and water damaged wood tables. The floors were an amazing mix of tiles of inlaid wood and others of inlaid ceramic. Each room also had stunning hand carved marble fireplaces of incredible size and were each topped by ornate mirrors. There was some very impressive trompe l'oeil all aorund, but in all, the place was quite shabby and run down and not a little depressing. I made my exit and felt relieved to be out of the watchful eye of the "not tour guide".

I attempted to do a little more exploring of the neighborhood, but it seemed that I was on the border of two neighborhoods, Uskudar and Beykoz. My ferry stop was in Beykoz, so I hung a left and went back in that direction. I strolled along the row of shops and restaurants, looking for a comfortable place to rest and grab a bite. I strolled all the way into residential areas, so I turned back and found a nice spot for börek right across from the ferry stop.

I ordered a small cheese pide, some spinach börek and a tea and some water and it came to all of 7.50 TL, not quite $5. After lunch I still had about 45 minutes for my boat so I sat by the ferry stop and read and wrote a little. A group of high school boys were busy being high school age boys and I was surprised how remarkably similar they are to their kin in the states.

I hopped off the boat at Emirgan (you may have heard of it) and climbed up to find a nice bench in the shade. I must say it was the most perfect day of the year. The early morning rain had turned to sun and back to thin clouds and the most refreshing cool breeze stopped by occasionally to remind me how good I had it that day.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I was antsy to get home and enjoy an afternoon coffee so I reluctantly removed myself from my perfect spot - after listening to parrots and crows have some serious conversations, after retrieving one soccer ball for some children and not being fast enough for the second one and watching it disappear down a hill, where they recovered it and one of its kin, where I was asked for a light by a different high school age boy who looked fourteen (and probably was), where I listened to a couple guys playing a guitar and singing (the first time I've seen anything like that here), and after I was heckled by a group of schoolgirls who tried to get my attention by calling out "Handsome! Handsome!" and giggled profusely when I said hello to one of them.

Turkish Security Pod. Most are plain white. This is a fancy yellow example.

A charming building by the ferry stop in Istinye.

On stepping off the boat in Anadolu Hisari.

A small square between castle remnants.

Some boats parked on the "Sweet waters of Asia", as this river is called (along with its sibling).

A nice bright red house, next to a nice bright blue house, next to a nice white house.

Some of the ornamentation of Küçüksu Palace's exterior.

Some lovely grounds.

Back entrance (locked).

More of the grounds. I wonder if this place is ever busy.

A grand gate leading to the Bosphorus.

A house nestled against a castle tower.

Like two ships passing in the balmy summer days. The view from my new favorite bench.

A little video for you!

Trabzon Post Script

Here are some photos posted without comment. The artsy shots, if you will.

Trabzon and Rize Day Three

Rize!

Day three was çay day, which is fitting because Rize is the capital of Turkish tea. We had an even more leisurely 10 a.m. pick up after our final wonderful breakfast and checking out of the hotel.

Our driver hailed from Rize and you could tell he was glad to be driving along his streets and showing Rize off to us and us off to his friends in Rize. The first stop was at our driver's brother's fish restaurant to take our lunch order. We would head up to Rize castle first and come back down for lunch waiting for us. Rize castle is perched high up on the hills above the main town below. There is a çaybahçe, or teagarden, up there and it is a wonderful spot to sit and enjoy it too! Tea grows everywhere in and around Rize. Seriously. In between buildings, on vacant hillsides. There are no vacant lots because they are all being utilized for growing tea. On the way up, our driver stopped and grabbed a few handfuls from someone's tea farm. After leaving the castle, we stopped at a neighborhood collection point for tea where people sit and separate the leaves from the stems. It was a very unassuming building in a residential neighborhood, but most people seemed to be tied to tea in one way or another in that town.

From there, our driver went to the local tea factory and coerced them to let us in where they were very generous and offered us a full tour of their facilities and then invited us to share a cup of tea with them! Them being two of the managers, not the entire factory workforce! We were all very amazed that they would just open the place up to a bunch of foreigners without any notice. I learned all about tea production and selection. Çaykur, the company that welcomed us, is supposedly the largest tea producer in the world. Who knew? Lunch was the local special hamsi, or anchovies, breaded and fried just like almost all fish I've tried in Turkey. They were good, but required a lot of work to separate the flesh from the bones. They weren't quite small enough to be able to eat them bones and all.

(Çaykur is also the sponsor of the local football club. So much a sponsor that the team changed their name from Rizespor to Çaykur Rizespor. Their logo is a tea leaf. Quaint.)

Our driver wanted to head home to freshen up, so he dropped us off at another tea/botanical garden so the boy could get some time being outside and run around. We were so full of tea from the castle, tour, lunch, that we abstained, although it too was a great place to sit back and enjoy a cup. It was located on a hilltop opposite the castle and was covered by large shady trees. The boy did indeed have a blast running around and making lots of new friends and soon it was time to go. We made a few last minute stops and were soon off to the airport for the short flight home before we all had to get up and go to work the next day. It was a full and fulfilling trip. It's a corner of the country that not even our Turkish friend had visited before. I was glad to have seen it and experienced so much in such a small amount of time. Thank you Trabzon and Rize!

Our driver, picking some tea for us. This is all black tea, by the way.

At Rize Castle. That's all tea on those hillsides opposite.

What a welcome stop this was. I think we were exhausted by being in the van so much the previous two days. This day just seemed luxurious.

Not a bad view from the playground.

The boy found a minaret his own size. Li'l muezzin.

Our sweet ride for the weekend. "Allah Korusun" means "God Bless". There's the requisite picture of Ataturk and in the opposite corner a sticker for the local football club Çaykur Rizespor.

The tea factory. I have to say that they've got it down.

Gezi Park

This is happening. We hear the banging of pots and pans in solidarity. We see our neighbors with their flags on display. We love being here. We want the best for everyone. I have strong opinions about all of this. I will share them with you face to face, but I don't feel like it does any good putting them here. I have to acknowledge that it is happening. That there is more to our own lives than these pictures of smiling faces and amazing sights and delicious food. This is a great country. These are great people.

Trabzon and Rize Day Two

Day Two!

Day two wasn't quite as long as the first, but I think it took a lot out of us, even though it continued to be quite amazing in itself. We started with a fabulous free breakfast at our hotel, finally got some food into our boy and had a leisurely 9 a.m. departure. We (being our family) were following the group itinerary, but it was amorphous and we were not always updated about where we were going, or more important for me, when we were going to stop for food. It all worked out great, but we had to ask several times where it was we were heading.

After loading up in the van again, we headed back into the mountains, albeit on a different road. It was a lot of the same beautiful green and lush green we'd seen the day before. Soon, the traffic died out almost completely and the mountain continued to rise and rise and get drier and hotter. We had entered the rain shadow. Our first stop was Karaca Cave. It was...unique and rather compact, and while the area around it was beautiful, I didn't think the fifteen minutes we were there warranted driving two hours to get there. Also, the boy freaked out at the darkness of it and the cool air and could not be coerced into entering. After that there was hope. Because, first, there was köfte and lamb to be had. I was starting to get burned out on the köfte, but this was some of the best I've had. It was extra crispy and not greasy at all. After that came Sumela Monastery.

On the way to Karaca Cave. I put this picture (with window glare and billboard) here on purpose because of the billboard. We were in an area of a lot of tea production, hence the teapot on the right, and that dish on the left, which consists of flour and melted cheese, is to die for. Or from.

There was a very windy road to get up to the cave, which was pretty much at the top of the mountain.

This charming village greeted us on the way up the mountain. It was so hot and dry, I didn't remember it being this green. I guess that's why we have cameras.

Sumela Monastery dates from the fourth century, although most structures are much newer. It is a fabulous place to visit because of its beauty, location and how you get there. Again, you drive up windy roads, pay a small fee for vehicle entrance and then cross your fingers for somewhere to park. This place was VERY popular. After exiting our van, we were faced with two options, walk the 3 km trail to the top or pay 6 TL for a round trip ride to the top. I opted for the ride. It was money well spent. Once at the top, there is a 300 meter rocky trail to navigate, which was somewhat tricky for me with a heavy boy on my back. He was feeling very happy to be out of the van, albeit locked in the backpack, but also a little feisty as well. There was loads of attention paid to him and he was almost flippant in his responses to people smiling at him.

Once you reach the top, there is another small fee to pay (unless you have the much appreciated Muze Kart, thank you!) which is the equivalent of about five dollars. Climb one more set of stairs and behold! This place is amazing! It is like a small city tucked into the side of a mountain. It is incredible. I can't imagine how inspiring and lonely it must have been to have lived here so long ago. There is a myriad of different buildings with different functions. I particularly enjoyed the library, which had a window that looked out way down the cliff face and across to the hillside opposite. There was a very nice and intimate dining room and a bakery with very low doorways. The rock chapel was obviously the most hallowed spot and it was awash in frescoes on almost every surface and was literally carved into the rock of the cliff. There was even a nice courtyard to give you a sense of openness after being in all the tiny rooms. There's nothing that I can compare it to. It really is just stunning.

Intrepid travelers all.

Happy family.

Looking up from where we entered.

Inside the Rock Chapel. 

The frescoes are uncovered and an arm length away. So many of the frescoes had been vandalized. What was surprising was that some of the vandals marked the year of their destruction, some dated to 1809, and there were many different languages etched into them, Greek, Georgian, some Cyrillic.

After retracing our way back to a van that would bring us back to OUR van, the boy was presented with a complimentary ice cream cone. He's still working on how to eat them. Note large glob of ice cream in Mlle's hair.

One last Trabzon note:

The area around Trabzon is fiercely proud of their little corner of the world. And they love their football team, which is remarkably successful for being based in a town of only 300,000. They are quite competitive with the larger clubs from Istanbul. That said, there is quite a bit of decoration on buildings around town in the team's colors of claret and sky blue.

Here they are on a factory outside of town.

And on a bus shelter.

Trabzon and Rize Day One

I'm breaking this up into three parts because there was so much fun that we had and this post would be pages and pages with all of the photos I want to include.

Trabzon!

Memorial Day weekend gave us three days to get out of Istanbul and explore some more of this country. We were invited to go with some friends to Trabzon, off in the northeast corner of the country. Trabzon has about 250,000 people and of course, compared to Istanbul's 18 million plus, it seems like such a quaint little village.

We woke up at four something in the morning to hop on a shuttle with our friends and travel mates to take us to the the airport on the Asian side of the city. The flight to Trabzon takes about an hour and a half. They have a tiny airport right on the Black Sea. We met our driver, arranged beforehand by another travel mate and we were off.

Our first stop was Uzungöl, Long Lake, up in the mountains. Yes, there are beautiful green forested mountains! It was so refreshing to see and once we got out of the van, refreshing to breathe clean mountain air. It's been so long!

It is nice to be there, but Uzungöl is a rather smallish lake, so there is little to do except for strolling about the touristy village and maybe grab a bite to eat. They do have paddle boats and bicycles for rent, but it was a bit chilly, so we opted for a mere stroll.

Requisite family shot. And snow!

Uzungöl. A-frames on the far shore. There was a lot of alpine architecture going on.

After Uzungöl, we stopped for a bite and descended back to Trabzon to see their Hagia Sophia, walk the pazar and check into our hotel.

Hagia Sophia is a compact church from the thirteenth century. The church is located on a hill above the city and has wonderful views. They also have beautiful grounds for strolling, or in our case, running after a very excited toddler who was about done being in a van all day.

Some of the frescoes inside the church.

The church and bell tower.

Getting a peek at the city below.

Looking west. A sample of the coastline.

He climbed into a fountain, rather, I let him climb in the fountain because it was dry.

Mama and her babe.

From there, we strolled along Uzun Street looking at shops and stuff and entertaining the crowds with a tall bearded man carrying a toddler in a backpack. No surprise, but the people of Trabzon are as friendly as they are here in Istanbul. It was a good jaunt through the narrow and twisty streets. Nothing was purchased save some apricots and we piled back into our van to see our hotel.

We stayed at the Novotel, which is not a telecom company, but a hotel chain which isn't too shabby. It is located right off the beach and had beautiful grounds to walk around and it's own exit to the Black Sea beaches. The beach is nice, but the water is COLD, plus it being early season and not too sunny, they were mostly empty.

With us fighting off exhaustion and hunger, our driver returned to take us to a splendid restaurant, again located on the water, where we dined on white bean salad, Akçabaat köfte and lamb. The boy was thoroughly exhausted and would not eat and just wanted to run around. The staff of the restaurant were more than happy to chase him too so his mom and pop could quickly eat some food. After that, glorious sleep.